


soft

by Khiroptera



Series: Kara Brosca [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-18 11:58:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18699166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khiroptera/pseuds/Khiroptera
Summary: Alistair gets Kara alone and tells her how he feels.My take on Alistair and Kara's first kiss.





	soft

**Author's Note:**

> everyone and their mother writes a first kiss scene, so here's mine, simple and sweet with a touch of steam. 8P

They had just set up camp, and amidst the twilight and the trees, Alistair and Kara were searching for wood for the fire. Or, well, Kara was searching.

Alistair, meanwhile, was trying to calm his hammering heart while he stared after his fellow Grey Warden. He’d manage to pull his gaze away momentarily to pick up a few meager twigs before his eyes would inevitably slide back to her again.

Her cute, choppy bangs would swish across her eyes, and she’d push them back behind her ear only for the offending hairs to fall down again, too short to stay put. He wanted to reach out and touch it, run his fingers through the strands, brush his thumb over the light scar on her jaw and the brand on her cheek…

Kara caught his gaze and smiled, her lips plump and sweet and— _don’t stare at her lips you fool!_ Alistair felt his face heat up and looked away, a nervous smile of his own stretching his lips thin.

Right. He had a _plan_. He didn’t have the two of them out alone in the woods for no reason. He _had_ to ask her, had to _know_.

Kara was his best friend, made him feel complete and full of purpose. Her optimism spread across the camp so easily to everyone—not a soul among their party doubted her capability to get the job done and do it _right_. She _trusted_ when she came from a past that gave her no reason to do so, and that made Alistair trust too. They were always side by side, equals fighting against the odds. Kara told him she couldn’t imagine doing any of this without him. Alistair was sure she could’ve accomplished everything just fine on her own, but it was a nice sentiment—the idea that she needed him just as much he needed her.

Leliana had joked before, when they were deciding who would go to market and who would stay at camp, that there was “no Kara without Alistair.” He knew just by Wynne’s expression that he must have flushed beet red, his stomach in flutters, but Leliana wasn’t wrong. He and Kara fought together, she a whirlwind of blades around his stalwart defenses. They went everywhere together, whether on business for the Blight or on a simple excursion for supplies. They sat next to each other at meal times, _always_ , no exceptions. They slept near each other, sometimes sharing a tent (with a safe distance between their bedrolls). Their lives felt entwined, and Alistair had never been this close to another person before.

The problem was that he’d like to be _closer_.

He appreciated their friendship, there was no question there. It’d been so long since he had someone he could call friend, let alone _bestest friend forever_ (or for the next thirty years at most). If that’s all his relationship with Kara could ever be, he’d damn well take it and be happy.

Then again, late at night, when he’d try to sleep, his mind would slip into thoughts of her: sentimental, _sappy_ things like holding her hand and hugging her close and tight. She was beautiful, too, with red hair and blue-green eyes and a cute little gap in her teeth when she smiled, and he certainly had other, more _unpure_ thoughts, but he was too shy and awkward in his own skin to entertain those fantasies for very long. Most of the time, he would fall asleep to thoughts of snuggling her, pressing a kiss to top of her head, and he’d wake alone, a strange distant ache to his chest.

He’d lived a sheltered life before joining the Wardens, but he’d had a few romantic infatuations before. This was a very, very big infatuation, and Alistair couldn’t help but to wonder if it was at all returned.

She’d told him he was handsome once, in a sort of roundabout way. _She’s flirting with me_ , he’d realized, though he’d managed to keep his composure. But when he asked if he could say the same to her, Kara had bit her lip. _Not unless you don’t think so_ , she’d said. That little flicker of insecurity in her eyes _tore_ at him from the inside. In a rare moment of confidence, Alistair had smoothly told her that he did, in fact, think so.

He’d later given her a rose, a strange impulse that had tugged at him from his heart, made him tell her she was rare and beautiful. For a half second after he’d handed it to her, he wondered if Kara even knew what a flower _was_ , having lived underground her whole life—then she brought it to her nose and he remembered they’d been traveling together for many months now and _of course_ she knew. She joked with him— _Your new weapon of choice? Feeling thorny, are we? Are we married now?_ —and he swished his bare hands through the air and called himself a prize and they laughed and it was so _easy_ , somehow, to just be himself around her.

Now they were out in the ever-darkening woods, alone, because Alistair insisted they needed more wood for the fire, and as usual, he and Kara went together. He didn’t want to confess himself to her in front of everyone else. For once, he wanted a quiet moment between the two of them. If he was to face rejection, Alistair wanted to keep some of his dignity intact.

“Kara?” he said, his voice like a knife cutting through the quiet.

She straightened her back and walked over to him, bundle of sticks in her hands. “Yes?”

The _plan_ was to ask her if she’d miss their travels after the Blight was over, before launching into a carefully constructed speech about what she meant to him.

Instead, he said, “I don’t know if this is too sudden, but I… I’ve come to care for you. A great deal.”

Her eyes widened, and his heart was beating so hard and fast Alistair briefly entertained the possibility of a heart attack. He looked down at his feet, gripping tightly at his handful of twigs, and continued. “I know we haven’t really known each other that long, less than a year and we’ve been too busy for any real kind of… _courtship_ , but we’ve gone through so much together. I don’t know, I just—”

She put her gloved hands on his gauntlets, dropping her sticks in the process. “Alistair. I think I feel the same.”

He dared to look at her face then and saw the flush on her cheeks. How her round lips were parted around quickened breaths.

He dropped his bundle and reached for her, his hands coming to her shoulders. Her gaze flickered between his eyes and his lips, and he couldn’t help it anymore—Alistair leaned down, and she leaned up on her tiptoes, and he brushed his lips against hers, so feather-light it sent tingles down his spine and a bursting feeling his chest. Her breath caught before she pulled away from him.

“Sorry!” he said. “That wasn’t too soon, was it?”

Instead of answering, she wound her arms up and around his neck.

“Come down here,” she said, a wry little upturn to her lips, and he didn’t think twice. He knelt before her, one knee pressed into the earth, and something about this was so distinctly _right_ that Alistair felt himself grow hot under his collar.

Kara was a couple inches taller than him in this position, and her arms were draped over his shoulders and she was kissing him again. Alistair sighed against her mouth—her lips were so soft and full and _perfect_. He wanted to cup her face or weave his fingers through her hair, but he worried his gauntlets might pinch or snag; he placed his hands at her waist, instead, grounding himself with the feel of her.

She angled her face, slotting their mouths together even better than before, and that bursting feeling returned, made him grip at her and tremble. This was really happening. He was kissing her. _She_ was kissing _him_ , and he didn't know what he expected when he planned this excursion but it this was better than all of his fantasies, combined.

Kara pulled back slowly, and he chased after her with a small whine before his eyes fluttered open to look directly into a heavy lidded, blue-green gaze. “Alistair,” she sighed, and he gasped before she pressed forward again. This time, she tilted her mouth just so, and he felt her lightly suck on his lower lip. He moaned a little at that, pushed his lips against hers more insistently. His arms came around to encircle her body, hold her tight to him as he shuddered with the effort to stay upright.  _Maker,_ he wished he could feel her better, _damn his armor..._

It seemed like too long and yet not long enough, the soft wet little smacks of their lips amidst the songs of crickets. Eventually, they broke away and pressed their foreheads together, twin smiles mirroring the other.

“Was that too much?” Kara asked him. Alistair shook his head.

“It was perfect. _You’re_ perfect,” he said, and she giggled a little, soft and breathless. He sighed, and he knew a foolish grin had made its home on his face. “Maker’s breath, but you’re beautiful. I am a lucky man.”

“I think I’m pretty lucky myself, with my handsome human man,” Kara said, nuzzling her nose to his, and Alistair responded with a breathy laugh.

“Well, I’m sure we can argue about who’s luckier when we get back.” He reluctantly pulled away from her and stood, shaking out his legs. His knees were a little sore, but Alistair had no regrets, _no ser_ , not after a kiss like that. Kara picked up the sticks she’d dropped earlier and handed Alistair his bundle.

“Let’s head back, then,” she said, and she reached her hand out for his. He took it, grinning at her, and they made their way to camp, holding hands the whole way.

When they did make it back, a fire was already lit, and Leliana and Zevran shot each other knowing looks. _Those gossips_. Alistair couldn’t quite find it in himself to be embarrassed, and simply swung their joined hands back and forth between them.


End file.
